Earth Day 2010

This coming Thursday is Earth Day. A few suggestions for making this day worthwhile:

Go paperless. Hand out no paper. Accept no paper from your students. TeachPaperless is making a great offer to help teachers craft paperless lessons. Click on over to his blog to take advantage of this offer or sign the pledge. If you are serious about going paperless, Shelly's blog is a gold mine.

There is lots of information to be found online offering tips about recycling and reducing that may not be practical at your local level. Have students find out how to recycle in their own community. Interview someone from local government to see what's being done. I was surprised to see that there are a number of items now being recycled locally that weren't on the list a year ago. Have your students make updated lists of what can be recycled locally and how to do it. Ask students to make an online recycling guide for their own family. Have them do a garbage survey to ascertain what might be recycled or reused.

Edutopia features a challenge and some resources.

Elementary teachers will find ideas and resources at Ecokids and PlanetPals.

Do an image search for any projects using Creative Commons Search. Make sure to uncheck the For Commercial Purposes box.

Image used under a Creative Commons licence from marc kjerland

http://www.flickr.com/photos/marckjerland/4185404793/sizes/s/